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Myanmar + 2 more

CWS Hotline - 30 Jun 2008: USA, Myanmar, Kenya

U.S. Floods

Families and communities affected by record-breaking flooding in the central U.S. are struggling to maintain and recover their lives and livelihoods.

CWS Emergency Response Specialists are currently assessing needs in flood-affected areas.

As floodwaters recede, long-term recovery groups will be forming in many areas. CWS will help to support these local, long-term recovery efforts with material resources, training, grants, and project development as needed.

You and your congregation can help CWS respond quickly to flood-related needs with your donations and by making CWS Emergency Clean-up Buckets (visit www.churchworldservice.org/kits). In an effort to facilitate delivery of the Clean-up Buckets, CWS has located a semi-trailer at its Elkhart, Indiana, office. Buckets can be transported or shipped to Elkhart before July 31 for delivery to flood-affected areas. Now and after July 31, Emergency Clean-up Buckets may continue to be sent to the Brethren Service Center in New Windsor, MD, and for those west of the Mississippi, to Fernwood Center, in Little Rock, AR.

CWS is also assisting with tornado recovery efforts in various parts of the U.S. Contributions may be made on-line to support this effort.

Myanmar

Church World Service has provided temporary shelter and fresh water supplies sufficient for nearly one million survivors affected by Cyclone Nargis on May 3.

People in 572 villages have received emergency supplies through Church World Service and local partners. The supplies, which included 3,944 "water baskets" to capture rainwater and provide clean drinking water, were sufficient to assist more than 980,000 people. In addition, 41,374 households received plastic tarpaulins for temporary shelter through CWS partners.

"Our model of 'disaster relief' is really about building disaster risk reduction components into any of our emergency recovery and rehabilitation programs," says CWS Emergency Response Program Director Donna Derr.

Church World Service is now focusing on providing agricultural assistance in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta area to ensure next season's crops and future food security. Farmers have until the end of July to recover their fields and paddies and get rice seed in the ground for next season's crops.

Through CWS and local partners, farmers in 11 townships in the delta are receiving rice seed stock, field preparation tools, and basic equipment to compensate for the work animals--buffalo and oxen normally used for tilling--that were lost in the cyclone. Additionally, laborers from families without farmland will be provided with jobs through funding from CWS.

"Because our philosophy is to work through local organizations--which helps people at grassroots levels build greater self-sufficiency and resiliency," says Derr, "with adequate support, CWS will be able to continue serving the Burmese people."

Contributions may be made on-line to support the Myanmar Cyclone Nargis response

Kenya

After five months of languishing in camps following post-election violence in December 2007, hundreds of thousands of Kenyans who have been internally displaced are returning home.

Charles Masese and his wife next to their CWS/ACT tent and the ruins of their home.

Photo: Micah McCoy/CWS

Most are apprehensive about returning home, according to CWS East Africa staffer Micah McCoy. "The underlying issues of land ownership, economic inequity, and political manipulation of ethnic prejudice have yet to be addressed in a serious way," says McCoy.

"I am convinced that peace will prevail," says Charles Masese, a volunteer with Church World Service partner Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya and a victim of post-election violence himself. "But it won't depend on politicians; it will come from the neighbors... when you forgive you go back and reconcile with the people that did these things to you...."

Like many others, Masese and his family have returned to their land and are living in a tent provided by Church World Service and its partners while they rebuild their home and lives.

Having provided support to displaced families all over Kenya throughout the post-election crisis, CWS and its partners are mobilizing to help address the challenges that are developing as a result of the reintegration of the displaced back into their home areas.

Contributions may be made on-line to support the Kenya post-election civil unrest.